“Couldn’t you do it now?” asked Laurie, so suggestively that Jo shut the gate in his face with inhospitable haste, and called through the bars, “Go away, Teddy, I’m busy.”

Thanks to the conspirators, the tables were turned that night, for Hayes sent up a wilderness of flowers, with a loverly basket arranged in his best manner for a centerpiece.  Then the March family turned out en masse, and Jo exerted herself to some purpose, for people not only came, but stayed, laughing at her nonsense, admiring Amy’s taste, and apparently enjoying themselves very much.  Laurie and his friends gallantly threw themselves into the breach, bought up the bouquets, encamped before the table, and made that corner the liveliest spot in the room.  Amy was in her element now, and out of gratitude, if nothing more, was as spritely and gracious as possible, coming to the conclusion, about that time, that virtue was its own reward, after all.

Jo behaved herself with exemplary propriety, and when Amy was happily surrounded by her guard of honor, Jo circulated about the Hall, picking up various bits of gossip, which enlightened her upon the subject of the Chester change of base.  She reproached herself for her share of the ill feeling and resolved to exonerate Amy as soon as possible.  She also discovered what Amy had done about the things in the morning, and considered her a model of magnanimity.  As she passed the art table, she glanced over it for her sister’s things, but saw no sign of them.  “Tucked away out of sight, I dare say,” thought Jo, who could forgive her own wrongs, but hotly resented any insult offered her family.

“Good evening, Miss Jo.  How does Amy get on?” asked May with a conciliatory air, for she wanted to show that she also could be generous.

“She has sold everything she had that was worth selling, and now she is enjoying herself.  The flower table is always attractive, you know, ’especially to gentlemen’.”  Jo couldn’t resist giving that little slap, but May took it so meekly she regretted it a minute after, and fell to praising the great vases, which still remained unsold.

“Is Amy’s illumination anywhere about?  I took a fancy to buy that for Father,” said Jo, very anxious to learn the fate of her sister’s work.

“Everything of Amy’s sold long ago.  I took care that the right people saw them, and they made a nice little sum of money for us,” returned May, who had overcome sundry small temptations, as well as Amy had, that day.

Much gratified, Jo rushed back to tell the good news, and Amy looked both touched and surprised by the report of May’s word and manner.

“Now, gentlemen, I want you to go and do your duty by the other tables as generously as you have by mine, especially the art table,” she said, ordering out ‘Teddy’s own’, as the girls called the college friends.

“‘Charge, Chester, charge!’ is the motto for that table, but do your duty like men, and you’ll get your money’s worth of art in every sense of the word,” said the irrepressible Jo, as the devoted phalanx prepared to take the field.